Inheritance
by Silverr
Summary: Most Parisians were trapped in prisons of their own making. Andrea would happily liberate them all, one red throat at a time. Spoilers for the end of the anime.


_Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo is copyright Mahiro Maeda, GONZO / Media Factory, GDH, Geneon, and Funimation.  
No infringement or disrespect is intended by this amateur work of fanfiction._

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**Inheritance**

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He much prefers Paris at night, but not because he is hiding: hiding is for the weak, and he is powerful. (So powerful, in fact, that when he is bored he stands near one of the many wanted posters that bear his picture and laughs at the oblivious gendarmes that pass him.) No, it is more that he despises the daytime, presenting as it does the excruciating _purposefulness _of the bourgeoisie. Bakers, bankers, delivery boys, choking the streets like swarming ants, all with someplace to go, with tasks to accomplish, trailing a dusty, metallic _purposeful_ smell that enrages him, reminiscent as it was of the dead air of prison — although most Parisians were trapped in pitiable prisons of their own making, whether they knew or admitted it.

He could happily liberate them all. One red throat at a time.

At night the anthill is quieter. True, there is purpose for some: washerwomen trail streamers of bleach and soap as they hurry home; swift cloaked men, with the clandestine smell of knives; the ambling painted, with their listless bouquets of flesh. None of these annoy him: on the contrary, he feels a kinship to them. They too had been born as unwanted and despised as he was, forced to fight other dogs for every scrap, having to mask themselves in meekness and loyalty and beg at the Monsieur's hand, to dance on their hind legs for a perfunctory pat on the head from Madame. It makes him burn, and so he hunts on their behalf.

The delicate spoor he tracks comes from an elusive prey that drifts on the eddies of the night: wealthy matrons and widows and daughters looking for adventure ... for _him_. He stands on the Ile de Jardin and inhales deeply, sifting through the possibilities. One or two "L'Air de Lune" – the middle-class's attempt at pretension. A current of "Seduction" – quite strong, so it must be nearby – but in his experience usually worn by wrinkled hags who carry nothing of interest. Finally, at the edge of it all, just the faintest trace of "Insatiable," that most distinctive and expensive scent only to be had from Messieur Pélissier's shop in the Pont-au-Change. If the wearer of such a perfume has nothing of interest between her legs, her other purse at least will certainly be bulging and juicy.

And how does he know this? Simple. Born a nameless bastard, he knows the smells of the world. Buried alive minutes after his birth, suckling the darkness and stink of the grave until a strange old goat and his spinster sister had dug him up, named him Benedetto, filled his nostrils with poverty, civility, and anonymity until a golden wind had swept him up into the fantastical garden beneath the Champ D'Elysee. There, he had been encouraged to re-invent himself by that strange man whose desire for vengeance was as vast and terrible and beautiful as the stars themselves.

But the Count was gone now, and with him Andrea Lucien Calvacanti's fine clothes and champagne. And while it was true that he'd enjoyed the fawning and preening of the society maggots for a while, ultimately he had tired of having to pretend to be honorable. His arrest just before his wedding to the banker's daughter had brought welcome consequences: his blood father, the esteemed Judge, had been exposed and destroyed and his lewd cow of a mother driven into hiding. Even more than that, though, he owned his freedom to General Morcerf whose failed Presidential bid had started a chain of events that had destroyed a full quarter of the city and opened the gates to wanton Chaos. In such an atmosphere, who cared where the criminal formerly known as Andrea Cavalcanti was, or who he hunted?

He follows the scent across the Pont Neuf. There is a bad moment when the scent is lost in a swirl of partygoers coming from Sainte-Chapelle, but past them he found it again, its source a flash of aristocratic cheekbone and perfectly-painted lips as a woman turns, apprehensively, to look over her shoulder. She seems familiar to him as their eyes meet, and hers widen. She pulls her hood around her face and flees down the ancient cobblestones of the Île de la Cité away from him.

No matter: he will catch her. He laughs as she goes where he knows she will go, where they all go, up the steps and through the Portal Rouge into Notre Dame de Paris. He waits a few minutes, to let her think she has found sanctuary, and then follows.

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The massive, ancient doors conspiring with him by their silent opening. The inside of the cathedral is darker than night at first, but then at the far end a red glow condenses to a tiny point of light.

She is lighting candles.

"Are you religious, Madamoiselle?" he calls across the darkness, stalking to her.

To his surprise, she answers. "I believe that there must be a God, somewhere, that knows all we do."

"And does he care that you light these candles?"

"No act escapes His notice."

Andrea inhales deeply as he circles her. Brave words, but terror shimmers beneath. He will play with her before his claws come out. "Are your candles for the dead - or the dying?"

"For the dead, and the dying, and those who will soon die," she says, her hand barely trembling as she lights a seventh candle. Imps of shadow caper on the floor and pews.

"Life is indeed short. I believe that God intends for us to enjoy our time here as best we can, before Death becomes our last paramour. Don't you agree, mademoiselle?" He stands next to her and eyes the glints of jewelry at her ears and throat, the necklace nestled between her half-covered breasts. She is both more beautiful and older than his first impression, and wealthier too: a bountiful crop. Still, as eager as he is to harvest her he hopes that she will run from him a little more.

And she gives him his wish. She finally glances at him, and something she sees in his candlelit face makes her clutch her cloak and flee. Andrea laughs as a small door crashes open in the shadows behind the high altar. He is in no hurry: there is nowhere for her to go. He walks softly, savoring every sound: her hesitant, shuffling footsteps, her cries as she blindly knocks against tables; her futile tugging at every unopenable door. Through the sacristy with its racks of dust-furred vestments, down a hot narrow hallway, then up stone steps, swirling into absolute blackness, he stalks the rustle of her clothes, the rich smell of her sex, her frantic breathing. He will not have to hurt her much to get her to plead and cry, and this makes him smile even wider.

Stone steps give way to wood as the pursuit ascends. She runs across the Galerie des Chimères, and he pauses to share a moment of brotherhood with the leering gargoyles as she pounds on the door to the south tower.

"Even if you could get in, the bell rope has long since rotted away, _chérie_." He decides not to mention that no one will hear her when she screams – he can see that she knows this already.

He begins unbuckling his belt as he walks toward her.

"Is it money you want?" She holds out her purse. "Here. Take it all." Her voice is calmer than he has come to expect in this situation, and he adjusts his assessment of her; she has more spirit than her fragile appearance suggests. Or perhaps she feels this chase has discharged her duty to protect her "honor": he has seen that, too, many times. ("I tried to fight, but he was so _strong!") _His dear mother is an edifying example: The wealthier the woman, the more ornate the pretense of virtue.

"Oh, I will," he says. "When I am done." He closes the distance between them, puts an arm around her waist.

""I know you," she says, unexpectedly.

"And I plan to know you, mademoiselle."

She struggles, pushes at his shoulders, then twists until her back is to him; but this just makes it easier for his free hand to pull her bodice down. His fingers close around the necklace hidden in her cleavage: he breaks the chain with a snap and tucks the pendant into a pocket of his coat.

Her pounding heart is like a frantic caged bird. "Why must you destroy innocent lives?"

"No one is innocent, mademoiselle." He squeezes her exposed breast until he feels the nipple harden, and sneers.

"Children are innocent," she whispers. "Yet so often they suffer for the sins of their fathers."

"And mothers," he says, suddenly irritated. He moves his hand from her breast to her throat. It is good that she has a cloak that he can use to cover her face after he strangles her; he has never liked the staring eyes of the dead.

"I loved my son," she whispered. "But my love could not protect him. Nor his fiancée. Nor my husband, or my friends ... It was not enough."

"I," he says, barely hearing her, "was discarded by my whore of a mother and hypocrite of a father, buried alive within minutes of my birth to protect their reputations. Her lewdness corrupted him, and cheated me of my birthright."

He can feel the hysterical laughter bubble up in her throat. "Is that your excuse? You steal and lie and murder because your mother did not love you?"

"Shut up," he says, and feels the blood-black hatred rise up. "Mary and Joseph were honest and pure. Their son, who they loved, was divine. If all women were pure, all men would be honest and all sons would be loved – but women are whores."

"Men make them so," she says bitterly, no longer whispering. "Men who acquire a wife as decoration, and treat her kindly only if it is convenient. Men who love money and power more than their children. If any should cry for vengeance, it is all women against all men."

Her hands on his arm are suddenly very cold, and strong as stone. She snaps his wrist, and when he staggers back, howling, she pushes back her hood and turns to him, her eyes truly blazing; and as he sees the glowing marks on her forehead, Andrea knows that at last his life has a purpose: to midwife a divine birth, a fiery angel that will spread its terrible wings and consume the City of LIght.

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_~ The End ~_

(04) March 2, 2007  
(06) 5 November 2011


End file.
